The Party's Over

On the way in to the office today I was listening to the radio. No, not "internet radio", real radio - with a real DJ and everything. There was an interview with Paul McCartney, who was asked, in light of his upcoming appearance at Candlestick Park, why the Beatles stopped performing...his response was "it wasn't fun anymore". Something about the culture of money, fame, and ostensibly doing what they loved changed and it wasn't fun anymore, and that was enough to make them walk away.

I know that the Beatles, individually, were famous and talented enough that they were able to enjoy 'solo' careers, and that even if they never toured or recorded again, they could probably have survived quite comfortably, and that's no small comfort (for them)...but still - walking away from millions of dollars and instant recognition with no guarantees that you will be able to do what you love again...it's nearly mind-blowing.

You might find yourself asking "why is this important, why is he bringing this up" - and with good reason. After all, my most recent posts on this blog have been at least somewhat technical...and there haven't even been any of those for a significant span of time (at least in blog years). So, your curiosity is understandable...and I'll get to the why of the timing eventually.

Back to the original train - "it wasn't fun anymore". When I heard this come over the airwaves, it reminded me of something I'd read in April of this year - Brian Chesky Note 1 relating the advice of Peter Thiel Note 2 when he funded Airbnb.

Don't fuck up the culture.

Peter Thiel, 2012

There have been a lot of people considering Thiel's advice - there are around 31,000 document matches when searching for Thiel's exact words - and now here is my journey down that particular rabbit hole.

When I was at university in the Metaphysics course, a question intended to highlight the division between essentialists and existentialists arose, framed not as a question about people but objects. Consider that we're rebuilding a sailing ship and we tear it down to the keel and replace all of the boards. When our work is complete, is it the same ship? If we think of it in terms of automobiles, it would not fit the definition of being the same car, because the identifier for the car - the VIN Note 3 - no longer accurately represents information about the vehicle. So, is it a question of how much we change something or what we change that makes the determination? Are organization analogous to objects? How does this apply to organisms?

Corporations are not people, but they are organisms, with values and personality that govern their actions, for good or evil. If we go back to the question of 'how much change' or 'what kind of change' makes something no longer identifiable as itself, we can think of situations in which we've thought, even though we may not have formally defined it, that some person we know has changed in some way and now they are not the same person - we may even readily claim this using this exact phrase. We should consider corporations subject to these same rules of behavior and personality. In fact, we can most likely each think of an organization - such as a business or philanthropic organization - that after an unsettling experience left us with the thought "they would have never done that it the past" or "they sure have changed."

Thiel most likely has seen organizations that have damaged their culture time and time again in organizations that have come to him for venture funding. He certainly sees it not only as a possible problem, but one that is likely as well. This, too, stands to reason as the common thinking is that as an organization grows, the culture changes as efficiency of scale is achieved in various areas.

The problem that I imagine Thiel sees - and yes, I am putting words in his mouth to an extent - is that when the culture changes, people leave - a situation that is also accepted as not only survivable, but normal. However, in reality, the turnover caused by culture changes are dangerous for an organization - it's like having an illness that has not yet been diagnosed - one with symptoms that you decide you can live with but that just might kill you. Part of the reasoning here is that culture changes are generally a self-reinforcing loop - the sort of loop that once it's started is not only difficult to stop, but also difficult to control or in some cases to even recognize.

Given the semi-private nature of an organization's culture, the earliest greatest impact of damage to an organization's culture will be to those within the organization. Why is this important? People are generally not motivated by money - culture is what motivates people - and it motivates people to do amazing things - like work 80 hours a week for several weeks at a time even though they're only compensated for 40, meet ridiculous deadlines, or nearly violate the laws of physics to deliver a high-quality, low-cost product quickly - whereas incentive programs generally don't work. Note 4 Because of the tight coupling between culture and other areas - like motivation and productivity, changes to culture can have a dramatic effect on the organization as a whole.

At this point, we might be tempted, after seeing people violate Thiel's advice, to think the culture of the organization is permanently damaged any time that it is changed dramatically. There certainly are people who have departed any number of organizations thinking just this thought. A brief review of companies on a site like glassdoor gives insight into the number of people working for a company who believe "changed" is equivalent to "damaged". However, here we have to stop and notice that Thiel's advice wasn't "don't have a damaged culture", his advice was "don't damage the culture". The linguistic difference between those two messages is less significant than it should be, because they are drastically different concepts.

In one version, culture is in a damaged state and in the other it's different than what it was. We need look no further than our own history of romantic relationships to see the truth of the premise that these are different, regardless of our willingness to admit it in the pain and grief that comes immediately after the recognition of how we, or the other, have changed. Just because someone or something you love - be it a person or an organization - changes and you find they are now intolerable (to you) that does not mean that they are therefore befouled or damaged - they can be a perfectly nice, good person (or organization) and still not be your cup of tea. Changes are significant, however, because once you've changed the culture, people no longer have the company they love, and people not only lose motivation, people start leaving - whether they're customers or employees - and that's seldom a good thing. Note 5

When the people most invested in the success of an organization - like employees - leave because the culture has been damaged, there are likely to be repercussions that ripple out in ever-widening circles, like those created when a pebble is dropped into a pond. If the damage to the organization's culture is significant enough, it's just a matter of time before that trend carries outward as far as customers. Whether the organization can repair the damage and weather depends on a variety of factors that are outside the scope of this brief essay, but in every case, the nature of the business will be profoundly changed. Whether that change is for good or ill is something only time can tell. If your organization survives by knowing their customers (or users), such turbulence can be exceedingly dangerous, and it is unwise to assume that it is not.

Now, to address the question of why this post, now.

Recently there has been a lot of interest in why I left a position I held for nearly a decade. Here is the best brief explanation I can offer - I left for the same reason the Beatles stopped touring - it wasn't fun anymore. Unfortunately, that explanation has frequently proven inadequate and I have developed a longer, but still brief, explanation.

Several years ago, I started what I believed could potentially be my last job in the industry. The work was challenging and interesting, the people were, as they say, "wicked smart" and immensely talented, the product was an economic product geared toward serving under-served populations, and the general corporate culture was based on four basic values that resonated with me. It was, in a lot of ways - very nearly every way in fact - the perfect fit. Over the course of the next several years, things changed - as things do. The work became mundane as my skills were under-utilized, the vast majority of people moved on, and the product and culture changed significantly. The organization was not the same organization with which I had fallen in love, and I finally came to recognize that all the perks and incentive programs were metaphorical chains that bound me in place.

As a result of changes that transformed the organization from something I loved into something that I didn't, I left - and yes, it was before finding another gig - because I'm a firm believer that when you see it's time to go, you put your affairs in order, raise your sails, and go. Now, three months past my departure, I still have a sense of what I've lost, and yet there are times that, like the song says, I'm "too relieved to grieve" Note 6  because, in the end golden chains are still chains (Robert's Rule #33).

Notes and references

Links in the notes and references list open in a new window

1. Brian Chesky is the founder and CEO of Airbnb. You can learn more about him on wikipedia.
2. You can learn more about Peter Thiel, an outspoken entrepreneur and venture capitalist, on wikipedia. 
3. The Vehicle Identification Number is an alphanumeric sequence used to uniquely identify a vehicle.
4. A summary of a journal article in the Harvard Business Review says it clearer than I've seen it said before - "according to numerous studies in laboratories, workplaces, classrooms, and other settings, rewards typically undermine the very processes they are intended to enhance."
5. There are a number of reasons it's not good when people leave an organization - brain drain and the ills associated with turnover - hiring costs, overtime costs, low morale, and low productivity to name just a few - are just two of the big reasons.
6. "Let It Go" (Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez) as performed by Demi Lovato.